


Morning After

by Pumbie



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-08 19:18:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15250221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pumbie/pseuds/Pumbie
Summary: The morning after, two friends meet up in a coffee shop to make some very important decisions, in light of various stupid ones.





	Morning After

She was sitting in a corner, stirring her coffee and staring into space, when he showed up, breathless and apprehensive.

"Hey," he greeted.

Finally she looked up at him, "Hey." Her eyes dropped down to her coffee and continued stirring it.

He sat down and opened a packet of sugar, adding it to his own coffee.

"Did you put something in that or are you just stirring?"

She gave him a look, "Stirring." She never put anything in her coffee, and he should know that by now. Without being asked she handed him the stir stick.

"Thanks."

There was silence for a few moments as he stirred his coffee, lost in thought. As she kept looking at her cup while her fingers drummed idly on the table.

Finally he broke the silence, "I'm glad you came. I wasn't sure you got my message or if you were..."

Ignoring me, was what he wanted to say.

"I was at the library when you called," she said as she delicately took a sip of her coffee. He noticed that she didn't look good, she looked tired with dark rings under her eyes.

"You went without me?" he asked in surprise and a bit of hurt seeped into his tone. They usually went to the library together every Saturday morning but he understood why she went without him.

She shrugged uncomfortably but said nothing. 

He didn't know how to broach the topic and he was sure she wouldn't be the first to do it so he forged ahead.

"About last night-"

Maybe it was too abrupt because her hands tighten on her cup. He let it dropped.

Eventually she continued the conversation, "I guess we were stupid for thinking we could be good friends without letting something like this happen when we have this tension between us."

"Yeah, I know. I'm-"

What? Sorry? Not really, maybe he would after this conversation. He decided to take the conversation in a different direction.

"I guess we didn't think of it properly."

He could sense her agreement in the shifts of her shoulders, the way she avoided his gaze. 

"So I guess the question is what do we do after this? Do we pretend nothing ever happened?"

She jerked her hand, spilling coffee into her delicate hand. "How can you even say that? First of all the question is not what we do after but what the fuck was that. And second, how could you suggest that we pretend like nothing happened? It's...you can't just turn back time like that."

She was glaring but at least she was making eye contact now. Hurriedly he backtracked, "Okay, okay fine. What the fuck was that?"

"Do I look like I know?" she said dejectedly. "This would be so much fucking easier if we could blame it on alcohol or pot," she hid her face in her hands.

"Hey," he reached out across the table to pull her hand away and touch her cheek. "Don't cry."

"I'm not crying, and stop doing that. You're confusing me." Violently, she pulled her hand out of his grip and swatted him away.

"We can't ignore the fact that we betrayed our best friends, Jug. But we can't just ignore it, not after last night," her voice cracked at the end, a sign of her crumbling facade.

His heart broke a little, watching her trying to collect herself. He noticed an older couple a few tables away, watching them concernedly. He glared in their direction and turned his gaze back to her. 

"Better?" 

"Shut up, you know I hate crying in front of others. But, what the hell. Does it really matter that you see me cry now? You've already somehow managed to see more of me than anyone else in this whole fucking world."

He was surprised at her bitter tone, "What are you talking about? Last night-"

"Last night? That's part of it, well most of it. But even without last night, how is it possible that you know more about my feelings, my secrets, my dreams and goals more than my best friend than my own mother? How come I end up telling you things or maybe how do figure out my secrets?"

It's possibly the most honest thing he'd ever heard her say. "You try so hard to be everything to everybody that they never really see you as yourself, they see you as what they need. I never needed anything, so I get to know the real you. That's why we're friends," he reminded her.

"Are we, though? Are we still? Because I kind of thought that after last night, that friends thing might not be..."

He knew what she meant, or at least he thought he did.

"You mean like, we'll never be able to go back to being friends like we were-"

"Yeah-"

"So we should, what, retreat to awkward acquaintance status or step it up to..."

So much unspoken in the conversation, but she got his meaning.

"Um, yeah. Basically." She paused for a moment like she was waiting for him to make a decision or something, but he didn't because he didn't know what the fuck she wanted. Finally, she cleared her throat. "And, you know-I mean-it will probably be, like, less confusing, and easier on us-on me-emotionally, I mean, and I guess spiritually too, if you want to put it that way-if we just... don't hang out anymore, I guess."

It was not quite an arrow through the heart, but he was kind of surprised at how close it came. "There were a lot of qualifications in there," he said, partly to give her a chance to back out, and partly because he really didn't know how to respond.

"Yeah, I... yeah." She was back to avoiding eye contact, looking into her still mostly-full cup. It must be cold now, was all he could think.

"So basically we can't be friends."

"Yeah."

"We can't hang out or talk, and if we run into each other we'll both probably move out of the way so we can avoid the awkward how-are-yous while we mentally relive and rehash every important aspect of our friendship, including last night and this morning. If anyone asks, we'll be awkward and vague and people will start to guess that something like this happened, and then they'll ask questions, and we'll have to justify our actions and our decisions over and over again-"

"Stop. Please." She let a few tears slipped out, and he was sorry he caused it but he couldn't stop until he made her see.

"What I'm saying is-is that what you want? Is it really?" He reached across the table, bridging the gap, to wipe the tears from her cheek.

"No," she said miserably, "I want you, but it'll be like that in the end anyway. It wasn't supposed to be like this-it wasn't-you're not supposed to-We've been friends for so long-we've talked about so much stuff-I know all about your ex-girlfriends and how you felt about them while you were dating them and after, I helped you through every single breakup, I know your pattern, I know that someday you'll get bored and your attention will wander and everything will end just like you said except there will be all these bitter feelings and-"

She choked back a sob, and she buried her face in her hands.

For a while, all he can do was sit and stared at her, because like she said he'd known her for years and years and years, knew her better than anyone, and he'd never seen her break down like this, never seen her willingly reveal this much of her personal feelings. That had to mean something.

The older couple a few tables down was staring with avid curiosity now, though the woman still looked concerned. He ignored them this time, because they didn't matter anymore.

He get up and scooted around the table, joining her on the bench and wrapping his arm around her.

"Hey. Hey, look at me."

She looked at him.

"You told me a while ago that I know you better than anyone else in the world. Maybe we didn't expect this-last night-this to happen, but it did, and maybe it was supposed to happen, because-don't shake your head at me-because I love you. You're still shaking your head. Stop it. I do love you-the other girls you were talking about, I didn't love them, you know I didn't, they were just short-term distractions, I guess you could say. I got bored with them because I couldn't talk to them, not the same way I talk to you. I guess you could even say because they weren't you. For all I know I could have been in love with you for years and never realized it till now."

She was staring at him with wide eyes and wet lashes. She didn't say anything, and he had no clue what she was thinking, which made him more nervous than he knew she could make him.

"So, to summarize," he said, partially to lighten the mood, "I'm in love with you. What do you have to say about that?"

She managed to shoot him a disapproving glare before throwing her arms around him and burying her head in his shoulder.

"Hey, you okay?"

She took a deep breath-he could feel it-and whispered, "Sometimes I hate you, but most of the time I think I love you too."

Those might be the best words he's ever heard, and he told her that-right before he lifts her face up to kiss her.

The older couple a few tables down applauded. He gave them a thumbs up around her because really, nothing is worth stopping for-

Well, nothing except an exasperated manager threatening to kick them out if they didn't stop scarring the eyes of the kids in the booth across the way.

**Author's Note:**

> You can check out my other works in my tumblr @everything-jeronica


End file.
